Rulers Relinquished

It started years ago with a song lyric: "Pencil marks on a wall, I wasn't always this tall."  A song about growing up; a song about how God stays beside you in the journey.

In the span of high school ending and college ending, pencil marks on a wall became for me synonymous with all the measuring rods of childhood: growing physical stature, growing maturity, advancing from grade to grade, acing tests, changing schools.  A sense of accomplishment and forward motion traceable by pencil marks everywhere.  On walls, on papers, on the forms you filled out to secure the all important first driver's license.  Rulers that showed your progress.

And one of the most jarring facts of adulthood for which I was completely unprepared was the sudden absence of all those mile markers that had helped me gauge my progress and prove my growth for all those years.  The sudden, unmeasured continuity of things.  How hard it can be to place forward motion in years that merge and blend unbroken, in the work-home-church-chores lather-rinse-repeat redundancy of adult life.  Rulers unexpectedly and unwillingly relinquished.

But there is another sort of ruler that has also been a constant companion on this long journey from childhood to here.  The kind that wears crowns, the kind that leads people - the kind that we always thought we were to be.

My first education on leadership came from old books read as a young girl.  Valiant kings and queens: gracious and diplomatic on the throne; fearsome warriors on the front line; moved by a deep sense of purpose and responsibility.  Always described as beautiful, always unconditionally adored by the people they served.  Always walking especially near to the King who governs kings, who I didn't yet know or understand.

The concept of leadership was further complicated by first brushes with a sense of the presence of this great King who governs kings.  The church royalty comprised of pastors was so transformative, so capturing to the heart of that broken girl with those dream whisperings of what a ruler was meant to be still echoing down after all those years.  They became heroes instantly and I assumed my role immediately.  I admired and adored them.  Unconditionally.

I admired them so that I wished I could be them someday.  Touch others that way, lead others that way, become the gracious ruler.  And when a calling whispered to that passion-stirred heart, young and impressionable, on a youth camp floor I felt dwarfed but determined.  If my name was being called, I needed to respond.  I had been chosen to lead.

To say my first steps were stumbled would be the understatement of all time.  I have never been patient and have always been an old soul.  To me the call to lead meant leading now.  And that brought all sorts of heartbreak.  Feeling neglected when not chosen for responsibilities that I was infinitely unprepared for.  Feeling immense pressure when met with the slightest leadership responsibility to do it well forever, adored by all and to transform the world in that role as my ink-on-page icons always had.  And hurting people, that to.  Shows of power, demands for loyalty, faking knowledge I didn't have.  Because I couldn't fail at this.  And for me showing any signs of fallibility would have been just that: a failure of the highest sort.  Because in my mind, leaders were perfect.  Because in my mind, rulers were flawless heroes.  And I felt like such an impostor because I knew I would never fill that role.

In the years since, the marks on this dream of rulers have been many.  We've seen beloved leaders fall.  We've seen twisted, hurting and hurtful leaders keep leading.  We've wounded others, wounded ourselves and I'm sure at times wounded the heart of God in our quest for leading well.  Ash and dust have settled on this dream, like so many other dreams.  And with the shine that dazzled our eyes dulled by experience, that most brutal teacher, we have come to see it more clearly and less amorously than we once did.

We know without an inch of doubt that leaders are only humans.  Just people - flawed and troubled, full of struggles and striving, full of doubt and pride, full of ambition and feeble attempts at surrender.  Completely mortal, completely imperfect, completely clay-footed.  Just human.

We've learned that there are callings that lift and push and lead; that fill with passion and endow with purpose and demand that we keep pressing on.  And we've learned that there are a thousand, thousand temptations at every side that would use this dream to twist and warp the man who bears it into a monstrosity, obsessed only with his own influence, power and success.  We have learned.

And so in this season of life, I am again relinquishing some rulers.  I've come to realize that both of these loaded types - the kind that measure us and the kind that mark us as influencers - can carry unparalleled spiritual and emotional dangers.  The one driving us to compare, to compete, to strive - and to hide our imperfections.  The other pushing us on to climb, to demand, to power-play - and to hide our imperfections.

My name is Mandi.  I am deeply flawed.  I am failing all the time.  I am constantly crying out to God to remedy the weakness that never seems to diminish in me with the strength that never seems to diminish in Him.  And at my worst, I am not crying out to Him very often at all because I am numbed by the exceeding crazy and the exceeding sane that seem to constantly collide in these lives of ours.  I am no true hero.  I've just come to find a God whose face inexplicably shines on me day by day and draws me ever nearer into the beauty of who He is.  And I wish I could just vanish within Him altogether - melt into His perfection and finally forsake these flaws - because both of these types of rulers in my head are driving me to the worst version of me.  And it is time to lay them down.

The only model for leadership or for measuring success that does not seem to warp me is to love and to serve; to try it the Jesus way.  There is no glamour in washing feet.  But then there are no games there either.

I am not shiny and perfect.  I ask for no adoration or loyalty from an army of followers dazzled by my gracious reign.  I once did, but I will no longer.  I just ask to bring some healing to the hurt that everywhere surrounds, to retain some anonymity amid the cries for a new person to crown, and to be where His heart can define me instead of their fickle applause.

I am trying to let God measure me and measure out influence to me as only He sees fit.  To truly mean in heart what I say by tongue - that they can have all this world; that I just want Jesus.

I am learning to reach for Him.  And I am relinquishing rulers and rulers alike.

Heading...

The certain way to miss your destination is not to have one.

That's the tone the conversation with the family took recently.

When the ship is without a heading, you can be assured that you will not reach it.

I delight in deep discussion and truly loathe small talk.  So I am thankful for the loves who quarry the depths with me.  Deeply thankful.  Yet I digress.

When the ship is without a heading, the voyage is robbed even of the chance for success.  There's no definition of it, no measure for it.  It is nondescript and therefore unobtainable.

When the ship is without a heading, the best to be hoped for is pleasantly lost.

When the ship is without a heading.

That word plays a bit in my mind tonight.

The heading.  The coordinates that clearly define the desired end.  The exact location where you intend to arrive.  The one point that all must move towards.  The heading.

Where am I heading?

If ever I do teach teenagers (as I hope to) about all of the things they don't tell you about being a young adult, I think this one would have to top the list: there comes a moment when you are not just expected to steer or to navigate.  There comes a moment where it is left to you to chart the course.  To set, not just sail towards, the mark.

There comes a day when the heading is asked of you.

Where are you heading?

In youth, this is all simplicity.  Heading to grandma's house because that's where we go on Christmas.  Heading to recess because that's what we do after lunch.  Heading to middle school because that's what follows elementary school.  And so to high school.  And so to college.  And then...

Where am I heading?

The farther I get away from the predetermined course, the deeper in the woods and the farther from the path, the more two things happen simultaneously.

First, I feel dwarfed by the open space, insufficient to the task of determining the course with the wide world laid before me.  I feel inadequate to determine the heading.  How should I know?

And then, most inexplicably, I feel grateful that the heading is not being chosen for me.  That I am no longer riding the conveyor belt being taken where the world thinks I should go.  Because, after all, why should the proper directing of my life's course be left to them?  How should they know?

And so to the page tonight.  Very largely because I have been away from the page for so very long.

And somewhat for the need to state a simple truth.

I do not know where I am heading.

Perhaps a foolish confession to make; certainly the bit of honesty we most often aim to conceal.

But truth nonetheless: I do not know where I am heading.

I know that God is truly the One who directs my days.  I know and find comfort in the assurance that He holds my tomorrows.  I know that life's greatest object is to love and follow Him.  I know.  My heart knows and is at rest in all these things.

And yet there is something of knowing where to work and when to quit; where to serve and how long to stay; who to walk with and who to part from; who to be and who to be free of - this whole toward and away - this constant journey quality of the time-riddled world in which we live that is very like being in open sea and very much without a map.

I love Him and I trust Him.  But I seldom know just what He is about in all these strange every days.

And there's something of me being left to the fine details, to determine the practicality.  And in all of that - that grit of free will meeting Diving providence - that place where it's a dance, not a Dictatorship - in that place, I don't really know where I'm heading.

And I wonder, is that true of you too?

That journey feeling...

There is something about the transitory nature of life that is so deeply unsettling.

We live a life of motion.  Life itself is adamantly un-still.

Planet whirling, spinning as it orbits.  Seasons turning.  Days flying.  Everything moving.

Walk here.  Drive there.  Working and busy.  Celebrations.  Mournings.   Visits.  Conversations.  House to be cleaned.  Car to maintain.  Body to care for.  Meals to prepare.  Kitchen in shambles.  More cleaning to do.  Task list times infinity.  No end in doing.  Everything moving.  And relentless dreams calling.

We live a life in motion.  And life itself is adamantly un-still.

And today, there is something about the transitory nature of life that is so deeply unsettling.

Like the moment, a few weeks in to a months-long journey when a restlessness for the peace of home overtakes you.  And so you endeavor to self-comfort: recount the joys of the journey thus far and the promised highs of the weeks to come, scattered like jewels in your imagination.  Consider all the things you do not want to miss on the journey until you become persuaded by them and your heart demands that the journey continues, insistent upon missing nothing.  Yes, let the voyage continue!

Yet even still that aching for home doesn't quite subside and so you find yourself in that journey-place.

That drinking in of here, wishing for more time to savor the experience, while simultaneously missing and longing for the steadiness of the un-journey.  It certainly takes a while to get there.  The excitement and the adrenaline of the whirling first days of the adventure must subside.  But it is bound to come: that unsettled half-place - the thrill of the voyage and the yearning for home.  Polar opposites of enormous yet proportional strength that leave you feeling torn between desires.

Life is like that.  Transitory like that middle section of a long journey.  There is thrill in the voyage - you certainly don't want the journey abbreviated.  And yet, in quiet moments, when there is that rare, brief pause there comes the longing.  The longing to be still, the longing to be steady, the longing for a completed page and weariness in the waiting.

Life is that dichotomy.  The deep hunger for here so often stifled by the busyness of here.  But there nonetheless - the urgency to taste everything this town has to offer before that voyage across the sea that separates me from this place not knowing if I shall return again to these shores.  That trip-like hunger laced all through this thing we call life.

And then that other hunger - that other place, other town longing.  There is more than this.  There is a quiet, a steady, a place I belong and am at rest.  And I hunger for that place like I miss my mother's cooking when I am a month away.  That taste of a homeland we have never yet seen that somehow lingers on our lips and beckons our souls when we still the motion long enough to feel its pull.

A sharp divide between two strong desires: indeed unsettling.

Like the journey feeling: split in two.  Deep, irreconcilable longings that consume you.  Such is life.

And so in those moments when I am journey-swept wanting to run full speed into the next, voracious for all of life and yet feel weary of all the moving my heart settles into that familiar divide and finds a space to wonder.  And so in the wondering: one simple thought.

Whether at the moment the desire to continue moving, travelling, voyaging through life wins out - or that other that longs for that distant homeland shore; whichever desire may prevail at the moment - neither can stop the moving.  Either involves a journey of a kind.  And certainly whichever desire may overtake, it is not my desire that dictates the shape of my days, the length of my voyage or that final return home.

And so while I am overwhelmed by the unwinding, the spinning, the twirling, as the world circles faster around me and I am dizzied by the motion - it is to the motion that I am given today.  I have been delivered over to it, to be shaped by the journey, to find God in the dance.

And so whether tomorrow will bring me to a next hello or a next goodbye, I am bound there nonetheless.  I am a pilgrim and a vagabond - just passing through.

We live ever in the tension of the journey place.  Heaven beckons.  And so does life here on earth.

And our gypsy souls find a way to answer the calls.  We learn to live the journey.

On wanting to write...

I want to write.

I want to put ink to page.  Commit thought to word.  Leave a trail; a trail in stories told and ideas shared.  A path that will perhaps ease another's journey.

I want to write.

In case the miracle of this may be lost upon us, let me make it plain: I haven't.  I haven't written and I haven't wanted to write in such a long time.

I once said that ink was my favorite word.

For one who always bites their tongue, speaks with thought and rehearses conversations both before and after they occur, I suppose the appeal of ink has always been its honesty.

Without a face to gaze into at the moment, the opportunity to simply say what needs to be said.

There's an honesty to ink.

I love ink for that.

But life has turned a new shade for the eternal optimist in me.  I haven't been able to reconcile the soaring faith in my heart, growing stronger through the fire, with the fire itself or the ash left in its wake.

A distance between the good He works and the brokenness, not His own, that nonetheless becomes a tool in the working.  A distance I cannot bridge.  A forever gap that takes up residence on the landscape of my faith.

A good God.  And all of the un-good we have seen.

And the fact that His power is mighty enough to turn everything back toward good, no matter how un-good at the start.  And the wonderings about why that power didn't choose to stop the un-good before it happened.

There are theological answers, certainly.

But the truest ink answers for me find their chance to live and breathe in the things we do and feel each day.

And these theological answers I know don't lend to life and breath.  It's the distance I find there - in the land of life and breath.  The un-answer the one which actually brings some comfort.  The embracing of the distance.  The fact of this world not being what He had in mind; the fact of a different homeland ahead.  The distance between the two.  The un-answer that has become home for this heart.

And so, my friends, I want to write.

Finally.

Finally.

I want to write.

It has taken some time and I cannot say with any confidence that said wanting will remain.

But for the time being, my soul has settled enough and my heart has rested enough that ink has again become a dear companion.  For so long its honesty made it a feared adversary.  Something I should have predicted in a time when it was so hard to face in bold terms the realities we saw.

But life is beautiful.  And I see beauty breathing in these days again.  And so, dear ink, a happy reunion.

I want to write.

And for that I am utterly grateful.

Beginning again... Again...

There's a word that I've used over and over again to describe "how I'm doing" with the whole job hunt thing. I've used it most often as a sort of response to the sideways, inquisitive and trying-my-best-to-mask-my-serious-concern-that-you're-not-really-looking-yet faces that accompany my initial verbal response: I haven't really gotten there yet...

It's the best word I can find to describe where I'm really at with things.

Daunting.

The prospect of putting in a resume: not so bad. The idea of taking an actual interview: bit more unnerving. The idea of beginning again (yet again) in a new place as the new kid in town: quite entirely daunting.

Over the last few years with all of the many things that have flipped over in our lives again and again and again, one constant that I often took for granted is the fact that I unlike most my age actually worked in the same place solid for going on seven years. At twenty five, that's quite a rarity. Whether positive or negative, the jury is still out, but a rarity nonetheless.

That's longer than I've spent in any school I've ever attended. Longer than the vast majority of friendships I've had (except the legendary loves). Longer by far than my very longest relationship. Longer even I think than the time I spent as a youth leader at our last church.

In short, without realizing it along the way, my job, the place where I was just killing time until I graduated and then dove head first into ministry, became something of a steadying force in my life. With all its stress, long hours, unpredictability - it still had the same calming, grounding pull that any place would given that much an investment of time. Familiar faces, familiar duties, familiar halls to walk. The sense of steadiness and belonging. The sense of having earned your place at the table. Even the crazy rhythym with which new staff cycled in and out came to be familiar. Bare halls each Christmas. Booming noise each fall. Predictable. Known.

I don't mean to write a sonnet to my old job. I learned much there. I grew much there. But all those who know the details know that it was far from perfect.

But somehow in spite of all of that, loosing a job, even one that I knew from the beginning I shouldn't keep forever, feels like just another way in which we have been uprooted and unhinged.

"I suppose I should be used to saying goodbye by now." Something like that was said in a movie we saw recently. I suppose I should be used to it. To loss. To sudden. To unexpected.

I suppose that I should be used to uprooted, used to unhinged. Used to beginning again. Again.

Should there being the operative word. I should. But I am not.

Perhaps it is that this is the first time in this grueling sequence that an uprooting has been just my own to face. Not belonging to myself and my comrades - my fellow exiles. Perhaps it is because this is the first time that I wander alone (although certainly not unsupported - everyone has been so great).

But I think in all likelihood it has more to do with being tired. I love an adventure. But I also love the familiar comfort of home. I love roots and I love wings. I need both to feel satisfied in life and lately it seems as though the scales have tipped toward the unknown and there is yet no climbing back up that slick surface to a place of balance between the two.

And so we dangle in the place where few things are sure. Where there are new trails to be blazed and new challenges to take on at every turn. Where there are new hearts to learn, new faces to explore, new lives to be had.

And while I am grateful that the Lord has brought refreshing newness in such wonderful ways to so many aspects of our lives; the stubborn, silly (and probably just plain tired) part of me looks upon a new venture in the professional realm and sees daunting rather than promising. Exhausting rather than exciting. Intimidating rather than inviting.

Silly self.

And so the old effort again. To remind my soul that He is the great constant. And that He truly does work all things together for the the good of those who love Him. No matter what those things may be.

Self: remember. He has done it. Time and time again. He is endlessly faithful and He has never failed us yet. So courage, dear heart.

And begin again.

Again.

On missing dreams...

Ten months ago today, we felt the world fall down. It was literally as though everything we had known shattered in a moment. A silent, searing moment that a heartbeat should have filled.

I never knew loss, real loss, until that day.

It changed everything. The way we see the world. The way a lyric falls on our ears. And the way that words fall from our lips. It was one of those searing, scarring, shaping things that leaves a mark forever.

Kingston, love, you're written in my heart. You have marked us forever. And so marked all the world. And I wish you were here.

But the tricky thing is that I'm not sure if I can say words like 'should.' To my mind when allowed to make its own decisions, should is a certainty. A heart that should have beat. Feet that should have touched the sand and the waves and spread dirt on our tile floors. A laugh that should have sounded. A life that should have shined. And up to me, should is certainly true.

You should have.

But it's not up to me. So few things are. And frankly, the world is better for it. It would be far too serious and too safe if all of life were mine to choose. And so how can I say 'should?'

A few months ago, He asked me to believe. To believe that He could write a better love story than this. And I'm finding that in all of life, I really believe He does it better. He writes it better than I do. My heart, my family, love, loss and hope. He writes life better than I do. He was the original Author of it.

But there are some moments when I wish that I could grab the pen. And cross out the lines that break my heart and run my makeup and confound my understanding. Like the day we lost you, love. I'd like a revision there.

I'd like you toddling around in the halls. I'd like to have cheered and hugged and celebrated your first stumbled steps. I'd like to see if you would be brave around our big dog or what you would look like when you were concentrating and trying hard. Your mommy used to stick her tongue out when she was little and trying hard - I'd like to have seen if you did that too.

And more than anything I wanted to see you see the world. I wanted to rediscover things through your eyes. And I really wanted to take you driving over the ocean. It's written in my soul and after all of the work morning drives you joined us on, I dreamed that it would be in yours too.

But I am not the Author. I don't hold the pen that writes the days and there are some things that I will never know. Like why we didn't get to keep you, sweet boy. You had the very best parents in the whole world just waiting for you. And today, it doesn't seem very fair. And today, I'd like to make some edits. And today, I wish you were here.

But I didn't write it and 'should' is not certain and in fact 'should' is not true. He knew all along, from the beginning of time that those 'shoulds' were not a part of the story. That there was a greater story. And He knew what your life would say. And though it hurts beyond words - all is as it should be.

But somehow, love, I miss doing all of those things with you. And my heart wonders at how you can miss - truly miss, like a certain childhood joy or like a friend moved away - something that never really was. How can you miss a dream? But I miss the dream of your life here with us on this earth. I miss the moments we thought that we would have. And my heart aches to know if ever we will look upon the sea together.

Today I wrestle with the idea of what should have been.

And I miss the dreams of you.

Time and purpose...

Thank You for the springtime,

for the flowers clothed in dew.

Thank You for the moments

when life comes bursting through.

Thank You for the new day

we hang our hope upon.

Thank You for the springtime.

Thank You, Lord.

Thank You for the summer,

the brilliant sun which warms our days.

Thank You for the moments

to enjoy; to slow our pace.

Thank You for the time of rest

which satisfies our souls.

Thank You for the summer.

Thank You, Lord.

Thank You for the autumn,

the leaves painted with fire.

Thank You for the moments

to reap the beauty of this life.

Thank You for the glory;

Your crown for days grown old.

Thank You for the autumn.

Thank You, Lord.

Thank You for the winter,

for the still and lonely snows.

Thank You for the moments

when we have to let things go.

Thank You for the secret:

that life in death can still live on.

Thank You for the winter.

Thank You, ever, Lord.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8